Family Guy/Trivia

• Adored by the Network: After being Screwed by the Network twice before.
• Author Existence Failure: Famously averted: MacFarlane was booked to fly on American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston on September 11, 2001. A combination of a hangover and a travel agent’s incorrect departure time caused him to miss the flight by 15 minutes.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Robert Downey, Jr. (whose son loved the show) in 2 appearances as Lois' long-lost, mentally-ill, fat guy-strangling brother.
  • Rush Limbaugh has appeared twice in the series: once as himself in-canon to partially inspire Brian to join the Republican party in "Excellence in Broadcasting", and again, as a replacement for the Rancor in the "It's A Trap!" installment of Family Guy Presentslaugh It Up Fuzzball. Do note that his guest appearance in the former was treated with much more respect, as the latter appearance was entirely self-deprecating.
  • Santa in "Road to the North Pole" is voiced by Gaston.
  • When Peter turns gay in the episode "Family Gay" he sounds exactly like Roger from American Dad.
  • When Neil takes out his retainer he sounds like Stan Smith.
  • Works both ways. Lois is Queen Machina
  • 1st Meg was Hayley Smith, then she was Gretchen Wieners, and now she is Jackie Burkhart.
  • Susie Swanson is voiced by Captain Picard.
  • In Germany, Quagmire is Luke Skywalker. Turns out they made a parody.
    • However, Peter's Mexican voice actor in season 3 was Luke in the '97 re-recording.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The uncut version of "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" where Stewie hears Hitler's voice in his head. Also the uncut version of "A Hero Sits Next Door", which included a gag of a kid holding a John F. Kennedy pez dispenser that was accidentally shot by a police sniper bullet. It was absent from the seasons 1 and 2 DVD.
• Marathon Running: On 2/6/12 TBS ran all three Star Wars parodies back-to-back to help promote the theatrical release of the 3D version of The Phantom Menace.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: It flip-flopped with this throughout its development. Its prototype short Life With Larry was something of a faux-sitcom and had already invented the cutaway setup and heavy pop culture humor. The second prototype, a What-A-Cartoon short Larry And Steve played out more like a wacky, Saturday morning cartoon (think something Tex Avery would do) with the satirical humor being much more subtle. In its initial run, Family Guy played something of a mix of both, utilizing the original cutaway and parody humor, but maintaining heavy use of light-hearted slapstick and keeping most of the Black Comedy to a minimum. During its third season and definitely following its revival after three years of being canceled, the show slowly evolved into a shock value Sadist Show.
• Missing Episode: Two: "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" (banned because FOX censors thought it would meet with protests from Jewish anti-defamation groups because of Peter's line in his "I Need A Jew" song -- "Though by many they're abhorred/Hebrew people I adore/Even though they killed my Lord". The episode finally saw the light of day on Cartoon Network around the time that Family Guy was returning to TV with new episodes. The "Even though they killed my Lord" line was changed to "I don't think they killed my Lord." The original line can be found on the season three DVD set) and "Partial Terms of Endearment" (banned because the storyline focused on Lois wanting to abort her best friend's baby after her best friend who hired her to be a surrogate mother dies. The episode aired in the UK on June 2010 and was released on DVD in September 2010).
  • For some reason, reruns of the Season Two episode "Fore, Father" are never shown.
• The Other Darrin: Meg was originally voiced by Lacey Chabert (uncredited). She was replaced by Mila Kunis in the second season. This was lampshaded in the episode "Business Guy", where Peter tells Lois that he could have her replaced, and says: "Does the name Lacey Chabert mean anything to you?"
• Talking to Himself: Seth MacFarlane voices Peter, Brian, Stewie, Quagmire, Carter, Tom Tucker, Jake Tucker, Seamus, and Dr Hartman. This trope is pulled off in every episode.
  • Lampshaded in one episode where Dr. Hartman and Carter are put in a conversation together, and notice that they have the same voice.

Dr. Hartman: Seems lazy, doesn't it?
Carter: Well, there's only so many voices in the world. Some of them are bound to be similar.

• Trope Namer:
  • Big Stupid Doodoo Head: Bill Cosby and a girl mention this on his show.
  • Intercourse with You
  • It Was His Sled: What Peter says during his video message for anyone watching Citizen Kane (along with the line, "There, I just saved you two long, boobless hours.")
  • The Last Horse Crosses the Finish Line: Said by then Villain Protagonist Stewie Griffin when Lois Griffin stumbled upon his evil lair while doing some household cleaning and slowly putting the pieces together while walking around. Stewie does kill her, but it turns out to be All Just a Dream.
• What Could Have Been: Originally, Family Guy was going to be a recurring animated sketch for Mad TV (as a competitor to Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse cartoons), but Seth MacFarlane decided that the show would fare better as an animated sitcom.
• Word of Gay: In a Playboy interview Seth MacFarlane says that Stewie will ultimately be "gay or a very unhappy repressed heterosexual". Make of it what you will.
  • Stewie himself tipped the audience off after learning exactly what the term "gay" meant, saying he could "totally get into that."
    • This was the same episode where he believed sex to be a kind of cake, remember? He was pretty much describing Heterosexual Life Partners in that scene.
    • "Well, it sounds like in that situation, I'd rather be the parking space than the car."
  • Earlier episodes showed him flirting with women (adult and his own age) and hinted at rich people orgies, though.
  • On the DVD commentary track to Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story the Word of God says that they were originally going to make the tale about Stewie's coming out (the original title was "Queer as Stewie") but changed their minds, because they got so much mileage out of Stewie's inconsistently portrayed sexuality "both ways".
  • In recent episodes he seems to be swinging back and forth faster than a pendulum caught in a hurricane. In one ep he crossdresses to get a part on a children's tv show, then promptly falls in love with a girl, then in another one he keeps commenting on how hot he looks in boy-shorts.